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, , 002501 ~"~~""P'Fi':o"i"'" ..,.t('\"'_'~r~~ . ~ i. \ Interregional Diversion Seen as 'Folly' . Arizona came in for further criticism-although more im- plied than stated-at another meeting, this one in Tucson. It was a meeting of the President's Food and Fiber Commission which was conducting sessions in various parts of the country to study various aspects of agriculture. The criticism was con- tained in a larger indictment of the whole idea of transporting water from the Northwest to the Southwest. The indictment came from Dr. E. Roy Tinney, director of the Washington State . Water Research Center. He said proposals to move water across s('veral states like that, and with government financing, were "~ national follv." It was, he said, comparable to the govern- ment subsidizing the transporting of iron ore .fromthe Midwest to the state of Washington because the Northwest had limestone deposits, hydroelectric power and coal. A steel industry adjacent . to Puget Sound shipyards would surely improve the local econ- omy, said Dr. Tinney, "but the real question is whether or not it would be to the general good of the nation. I submit that _until the natural opportunities for resource development within a region are exhausted, it is not in the nation's interest to sub- sidize major resource transfers of either water or ores. Aid to depressed local economies must first take the form Of subsidiz- . ing the readjustment of local economic patterns for intensive . utilization of the productive factors within those localities- patterns that may reduce or 'even exclude irrigated farming." .- Dr. Tinney contended that in .the Southwest "enthusiasm for irrigation has led to many excesses." One of the most serious, he said, was the exploitation of underground water that could not be renewed. It was incredible that. such a "mistake" could be repeated so often, observed Dr. Tinney. When a company exhausted an ore body. in a mine and had to move elsewhere, he said, the "mine-based community. finds another basis for economic activity' or workers and townspeople move on to an area that has such a base." Not s6 with the mining of water. When water was depleted, people living in the community. thought that someone-presumably the federal government- would replenish it. "But one might ask whether there is any more basis for replenishment here than in an ore mine. Is the rest of the country really obligated to provide what is needed to protect local communities and investments based on an erro- neous assessment of the period of time that the resource would last?" Rich Johne.on, executive director of the Arizona Intere.tate Stream Commission, also spoke at the food-and-fiber meeting. He said a re-examination of the national reclamation program was needed. Disappearing farm surpluses made it imperative, he said, that national policy on the development of water re- sources be oriented toward the use of water for farm irrigation in the West, where a large "bank of land" remained. Said Mr. Johnson: "There are about 9 million acres of land in Arizona, largely in public ownership, which are susceptible to irrigation -30- .l~.~: y~~,\:, -';1;: ~~;~h{"~.,~~: :~j __j ,', ;_ ".; . ~(:":~;:;."